Eating Up "The White Lotus"

This series was such a relief to watch after Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers," a show that spends eight hours saying as little as possible.  HBO's six episode "The White Lotus," on the other hand, has a lot to say, and does so with great skill and efficiency.  I know it's not fair to compare the two shows - one is a melodrama and one is a black comedy -  but both revolve around a bunch of spoiled rich people in paradise, being forced to confront their various failings, so there's some inevitable thematic overlap.

The most important thing about "White Lotus," which features beautiful, white, rich tourists behaving poorly, the way they do in so many other shows, is that it shows them in context.  We often see the action from the POVs of the staff of the White Lotus resort in Hawaii, and have an up close, uncomfortable view of all the entitled, privileged, insensitive behavior that the service workers bear the brunt of.  The most obvious asshole on the show is Shane Patton (Jake Lacy), newly married to the lovely Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), who discovers that he's been booked in the wrong room and takes it personally.  He gets into a battle of wills with the White Lotus's manager, Armond (Murray Bartlett), a grinning control freak who quickly reaches the end of his patience.  Then you have the troubled, needy Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who is looking for a shoulder to cry on, and finds it in spa worker Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), who she plies with money and empty promises.  Belinda knows better, but still lets Tanya get her hopes up.    

Writer and director Mike White is not afraid to be topical and not afraid to point out all the awkward, unspoken biases and hypocrisies that allow the rich characters to act the way they do, and the systemic oppression that force the poor characters to take it.  The final set of guests is the Mossbacher family - mother Nicole (Connie Britton), father Mark (Steve Zahn), college-aged daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney), and teenage son Quinn (Fred Hechinger).  Olivia has also brought her non-white friend Paula (Brittany O'Grady), who backs her up in bullying Quinn and manipulating her parents.  And it takes a while to realize that Paula is actually the key character in this group, who is made keenly aware of where she  is in the hierarchy of characters, subordinate to some but also in a position of power over others - and just as capable of causing harm.  Eventually you stop looking for people to root for, and just embrace that everyone is terrible in their own special way.        

I love the writing here, which constantly touches on a wide range of different class, race, identity, and social issues, while following all of these different characters through their various journeys of self-discovery.  There's a great scene involving the Mossbachers, where they're discussing inequality, and the adults offer self-serving pragmatism, Olivia and Paula can only be cynical, and Quinn is fully nihilistic.  There's the way that Armond is able to passive-aggressively finagle his way out of trouble by using hospitality tricks against the guests, but only up to a point.  And there's the way that Rachel keeps trying to find a way out of her new marriage before she consciously realizes that's what she's trying to do.     

And what really impresses me about "White Lotus" is how entertaining this all is.  I put off watching this miniseries for months, because I wasn't too keen on watching a show that seemed to be all about the discomfort of class consciousness.  But while the commentary isn't subtle at all, the show is also frequently hilarious, infuriating, thrilling, and a lot of fun.  The actors are having a ball, and I'm impressed as hell by Alexandra Daddario, Natasha Rothwell, and especially Murray Bartlett achieving a spectacular career high.  The production values are great, with special kudos to the music, which uses traditional Hawaiian instruments to create these moments of unease, suspense, and high energy.      

This was a great surprise, and I'm sad there isn't more.  Maybe I'll check out "Succession" - HBO's current show about more terrible rich people - after all.

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